The ship lay two miles from the shore, the wind was from the south-west, and the tide moving to the eastward; so that, with wind and tide both in my favour, I calculated on fetching South Sea Castle.  After dark I took my station in the fore-channels.  It was the 20th of March, and very cold.  I undressed myself, made all my clothes up into a very tight bundle, and fastened them on my hat, which retained its proper position; then, lowering myself very gently into the water, like another Leander I struck out to gain the arms of my Hero.

Before I had got twenty yards from the ship, I was perceived by the sentinel, who, naturally supposing I was a pressed man endeavouring to escape, hailed me to come back.  Not being obeyed, the officer of the watch ordered him to fire at me.  A ball whizzed over my head, and struck the water between my hands.  A dozen more followed, all of them tolerably well directed; but I struck out, and the friendly shades of night, and increasing distance from the ship, soon protected me.  A waterman, seeing the flashes and hearing the reports of the muskets, concluded that he might chance to pick up a fare.  He pulled towards me, I hailed him, and he took me in, before I had got half a quarter of a mile from the ship.

“I doubt whether you would ever have fetched the shore on that tack, my lad,” said the old man.  “You left your ship two hours too soon:  you would have met the ebb-tide running strong out of the harbour; and the first thing you would have made, if you could have kept up your head above water, would have been the Ower’s.”

While the old man was pulling and talking, I was shivering and dressing, and made no reply; but begged him to put me on shore on the first part of South Sea Beach he could land at, which he did.  I gave him a guinea, and ran, without stopping, into the garrison, and down Point Street to the Star and Garter, where I was received by Eugenia, who, with great presence of mind, called me her “dear, dear husband!” in the hearing of the people of the house.  My wet clothes attracted her notice.  I told her what I had done to obtain an interview with her.  She shuddered with horror!—­my teeth chattered with cold.  A good fire, a hot and not very weak glass of brandy-and-water, together with her tears, smiles, and caresses, soon restored me.—­The reader will, no doubt, here recall to mind the less agreeable remedy applied to me when I ducked the usher, and one recommended also by myself in similar cases, as having experienced its good effects:  how much more I deserved it on this occasion than the former one, need not be mentioned.

So sweet was this stolen interview, that I vowed I was ready to encounter the same danger on the succeeding night.  Our conversation turned on our future prospects; and, as our time was short, we had much to say.